Senator Lynn Beyak calls out Andrew Scheer for 'false' statements

Senator Lynn Beyak, who infamously defended residential schools, is calling Conservative leader Andrew Scheer a fibber who is "mired in" political correctness.

Scheer kicked Beyak out of the Conservative caucus last week, after he said she refused to remove racist letters defending residential schools from her Parliamentary website.

But in a statement sent to media on Monday, the now independent senator called Scheer’s comments "completely false" and said she only learned she was kicked out of caucus when she saw his statements in the media.

"Contrary to his statement, that he asked me to remove content and I refused, neither I or my staff ever spoke with Andrew Scheer or anyone from his office at any time,” Beyak said in a statement sent to media Monday.

“Talking points from his office also declared: 'Senator Beyak also admitted that she intentionally posted racist correspondence about Indigenous Canadians to her Parliamentary website,” Beyak continues.

“This statement is completely false. I would never say or do such a thing.”

Free speech issue?

In her statement, Beyak says she is "a voice for freedom of speech" and says her website has given Canadians a platform to express their views freely.

“Many citizens, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, from coast to coast, have written to my office expressing their views,” Beyak wrote. “Isn’t it interesting that when the media should be focused on Justin Trudeau’s ethics violations and Joshua Boyle’s alleged ties to the taxpayer compensated Khadr family, that old letters, on the website for months without controversy, are used to bait opposition leadership.”

“A good leader would never have fallen for such a ploy, but when an inexperienced leader wins by a small margin and does not adequately consider other viewpoints, some wisdom and common sense are lost,” she continues. “We deserve better leadership other than the current choices, who are mired in, or hampered by, political correctness.”

“Canadians can decide for themselves what is relevant and helpful for a fresh start for those Indigenous people who still suffer and who live in hopelessness and poverty with inadequate housing and dirty water. Discerning citizens don’t need government to tell them what is allegedly racist,” Beyak snaps.

On Twitter, First Nations writer Robert Jago pointed out that Beyak’s right to freedom of speech is not under threat.

“The only rights under threat in the Lynn Beyak case are the rights of the Conservative Party of Canada to choose to associate with people who meet their standards. This isn't a free speech issue — for the millionth time.”

Schools as prisons

Racist letters posted on Beyak’s website call Indigenous people who were forced to attend residential schools “pampered,” saying other groups must have been “envious.”

“From the history I have read, it is likely that the aboriginals received better treatment and education than society gave, the Irish, the Scots, the Polish, the Jews and other minority or out of power groups, like the poor,” one such letter says. “The Welland Canal in St. Catharines was dug by these low power groups and if they died on the job as many did, it was just another bloody Irishman or what have you. They likely were envious of the pampered aboriginals that got free school, free food, free housing and that still wasn't enough.”

In fact, residential schools were not so much schools as prisons. Indigenous people in Canada were forced to attend these schools that had a stated purpose of assimilation and cultural genocide, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which heard from thousands of survivors of these schools.

Children were removed from their homes and separated from their families. “This was done not to educate them, but primarily to break their link to their culture and identity,” according to the TRC.

Their hair was cut, they were punished for speaking their languages, and beaten or even subjected to the electric chair if they ran away. They were taught they were inferior, and they were subjected to physical and sexual abuse.

More than 6,000 children died in these schools, according to the TRC.

The chances of a child dying in Canada’s residential schools were about equal to the chances of a soldier dying in World War II, according to CBC.

It was only when survivors of these schools came forward to tell their stories and brought a lawsuit against the government that the full history of the schools was revealed.

“Getting to the truth was hard, but getting to reconciliation will be harder,” the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission states. “It requires that the paternalistic and racist foundations of the residential school system be rejected as the basis for an ongoing relationship.”